Full Transcript

Sari
Welcome to your Food Business Success. This podcast is for early stage entrepreneurs in the packaged food industry ready to finally turn that delicious idea into reality. I'm your host Sari Kimbell. I have guided hundreds of food brand founders to success as an industry expert and business coach, and it's got to be fun. In this podcast, I share with you mindset tools to become a true entrepreneur and run your business like a boss, interviews with industry experts to help you understand the business you are actually in, and food founder journeys so you can learn what worked and didn't work, and not feel so alone in your own journey. Now, let's jump in!

All right, everyone, welcome back to the podcast. I am so excited to welcome on our guest today. Our guest is Mark Josephson, and he is the founder and CEO of Castiron. Mark is a lifelong entrepreneur with a passion for helping small businesses thrive. He is a two times successful CEO having built, grown, and sold two previous startups, including link shortening company Bitly. That's cool. I use that all the time by the way. Mark started Castiron to combine his passion for small businesses and eating cookies. Love it. Currently is spending lots of time during both of these. So welcome, Mark.

Mark
Thank you so much. I'm so happy to be here.

Sari
Yeah, and I get to turn the tables on you. Because you interviewed me and now.

Mark
Why I'm nervous this time, but not nervous then.

Sari
Yeah. Now it's your turn. I love that, that you know, there's something really special about the startup mentality and getting it. And I think it's so cool that you bring that into the food space. So why don't you tell us a little bit more about what the heck Castiron is? Because I bet a lot of people are like, what is that?

Mark
Thank you. And I'd love to talk, made me start thinking about my dad who taught me how to be an entrepreneur. So maybe we'll come back to that and the therapy session component here. Think of Castiron as the marketplace for independent artisans to match with customers looking to buy their products. And that's what we're really excited about to be launching now is we have built already an unbelievably powerful platform for independent food artisans to professionalize your business with gorgeous websites and customization and tools to streamline and simplify your life and your business like billing and CRM and pre orders and calendars, all that stuff. And then the next thing that our customers have always asked us for is more customers, and how to grow their business and build a sustainable, healthy life while doing this business. And so that's why we're excited about the marketplace and what we're launching that.

Sari
Yeah, and we'll get into that big announcement here in just a second. But I want, I guess, can we go in a little bit deeper into how Castiron is different than maybe Shopify? Or who the user is that would be interested in using this platform?

Mark
Sure. So we are laser focused as a company on independent super small businesses who are making food out of their homes or out of commercial kitchens, so cottage or in a commissary or commercial kitchen. And that's important because these customers of ours have specific needs that are different than the needs of other customers. And every business I've ever been in and aspire to be in has a deep affection for an understanding of their customers needs. Shopify is awesome, super powerful. It's a mile wide and an inch deep. Any business in the world can use Shopify, you need a certain level of technical savvy and time and sort of gumption to get through. Well, it's not particularly easy setup process. I've done it, not well. But what Castiron aims to be is a place where a homemaker, prepper, a hot sauce maker, a granola maker, somebody who's got a product that they're selling comes to and immediately feels like, oh, you built this for me? What are the 5 or 10 things that we can? We don't have to assume about our customer but we know deeply about our customer. So we're asking about allergens in your kitchen, and allergens and ingredient in modifiers like paleo or Kosher or local or organic. You don't have to go looking for those when you're building your shops and products in Castiron. They're there because that makes sense. We know that you want to do pre sale. Start on one day, they end on another day. It shouldn't be hard to do, it should be. You should feel welcomed as a user to the platform and understood as a user, you know, we talk a lot about empathy for our customers to really understand. So somebody, you can be small, you can be big, you can be starting out, you can have an existing business, but you should feel like your life got easier when you got onto Castiron.

Sari
Right. And because I think the people you're working with which it's great that you work with, I mean, it sounds like you have other industries. But I know baker's are specifically a really important customer to Castiron, because they have products that are perishable, and that they can be customized a lot. And they need a lot of flexibility around pre orders, pickups, deliveries, all of that.

Mark
That's another thing we've actually seen a lot of, when we have people come to us after being on Shopify. Shopify really is in most of the platforms for really optimized for, like items on the shelf. To get to warehouse like drop shipping, behind the scenes on, all that stuff. Not for perishable, customizable, and locally delivered products. Most of the products on Castiron are fulfilled within one zip code radius. So it's local pickup, or local delivery by the seller themselves not putting in a DoorDash or TaskRabbit, or whatever to like, deliver for you. It's like it's in my car, and I'm dropping it on your doorstep kind of thing. Requires different decisions when you're building the product.

Sari
And you know, full disclosure, I love Shopify, that's what I usually recommend, although now that I'm more aware of what you guys do, and I've done some events for you, and we're doing more and we really fun partnership, but you know, there are times where, especially when I'm working with bakers, and cottage food, or maybe like the meal delivery or, you know, things that are more perishable. It's like, no, no, no, you don't need the full build out of Shopify, you need Castiron, and especially people who are not very tech savvy. And you know, we do some help support for Shopify, my team, but it's so nice that there's this option where somebody, right, cottage food, or making any commercial kitchen, they make a great product. That's what they do.

Mark
It's really hard to be an incredible baker and an engine software engineer, and a financial analyst, and an admin and a marketer, right? And a product designer, like, and a graphic designer, in addition to everything else you're doing. And, you know, we've talked a little bit about my background, but my whole career has been about how to use technology, and software to make individual people more successful. And, you know, and that, to me is the power of technology in this innovation that we see. And I'm old. I'm not on camera, but a lot of gray hair like zen.com one, when it was like, what is this going to be used for? Who's going to use it? Do you really need a computer in your home kind of thing? Now we carry one in our pockets, and it's just we're all much more productive. It should be making us more productive. It should be making us happier. It should be making life easier. And that's what I love to do.

Sari
Yeah, should be working for us instead of becoming beholden to this thing that drives us crazy.

Mark
Do you keep your phone like in your bedroom? Or do you leave it outside?

Sari
I do have it in my bedroom. I have it very locked down. So like 8pm, it locks almost everything down. I do have a couple of like my sleep app is on and there's a couple of things that I do need my phone for.

Mark
I have an object because like it shouldn't be working for us but like you know you get up, my phone is by my bedside table and I shouldn't have it there. It's not healthy.

Sari
I use the feature for the iPhone anyway, you can set like you can decide what apps to lock down and when and time and so I've done that and it's great. It's not that you can't get in there but it tells you like, you have to bypass it, right? So yes, I am working on a better healthier relationship with technology. So speaking of all those hats, yeah, I love it that you've built something that's easy for people who aren't techie who you know that it works for them and especially these kinds of businesses. I'm so curious, why did you decide to go into food like besides to eat more cookies, of course, but.

Mark
I can't lie and pretend that that's not like part of it, I really have always been obsessed with cookies and with food. I'll just say I don't have the healthiest relationship with food. It's complex. And this probably another podcast episode, but so I was running Bitly, did that from 2013 to December of 2019. And then it was time to go do something else. And it was like, okay, great. I'm going to take a year off to be with my family in quotes. And I thought I was going to be the only one home and then the pandemic hit. Home with my family, and doing a lot of things. But what do you remember, there was like a week or two in there, when the supply chain was particularly bad, and all the news stories had the empty shelves. And, you know, you may have been like me in order to create some funky vegetables and frozen sides of beef to your house, like all those things. So we were doing that too. And one of our youngest son has pretty severe food allergies. So just adding a layer of complexity to all of that. And I started searching and Googling, like I do, like one does. And I happened upon people in my neighborhood and surrounding neighborhoods, who were making food out of their homes or commercial kitchens and selling them on Instagram or Facebook. And I was like, what is this and I'd known that, like, you know, we'd gotten like a candy table once or charcuterie thing for a party or something, but I wasn't really paying attention. But this guy was making pints of artisanal ice cream in a commercial kitchen, putting it on Instagram and drops and selling them out in like five minutes, like insane flavors for like 15 bucks a pint. And then there's this woman who is a classically trained, excuse me, pastry chef, worked at all the finest, fanciest places in New York City for the events of the weddings and all that stuff, moved to the suburbs, and was now delivering hot cinnamon rolls to your doorstep on Saturday morning.

Sari
Oh my gosh, brilliant. Because we're all locked down. And we're like, oh, I can't go out to eat.

Mark
My brain works is, you know, I live in New York City, like you walk by the hotdog guy. And I start thinking to myself, okay, if each hotdog is 2.50, and maybe he sells 20 an hour, or whatever it is, like I'm doing the math to figure out like, does he know something I don't, should I be doing that? Like, you know, like, how to, like, how does it work? And I went down the rabbit hole. And I quite literally found in that first look, thousands of these people since then. No exaggeration, millions worldwide. People are making food out of there in this category broadly. And I spend time with them. And I talked to them. And I like what do you love about your job? What do you hate about your job? Why did you start doing this job? If you had one wish, what could it be? Like real like product discovery, but like, genuine curiosity. And there started to be some patterns in there. And the patterns are really telling. So take baker's, for example. These are usually really incredibly talented women in their 40s or older, not doing this for fun per se, but doing this for extra income to either supplement it is another job to cover an incremental expense, like health care, or childcare, or they had a family member move in with them or something that happened that they are entrepreneurs by necessity. And that multi hyphenate. So I do this and that. And there's this trope of this being a side hustle. And you should just give it away for free and people get annoyed if you try to charge them. That's the fear in the mindset of a lot of of these sellers. And they are so passionate, so talented, and so hard working and working on all the wrong things. Yeah. 80% of the time doing something other than creating the moments of joy that can be delivered when you put something warm and fresh baked in front of somebody you care about. Right? And those that 80% of the time was all things like, oh, I need a professional looking appearance. Oh, I wish I were sending emails out, what does my social media look like? Gosh, where's my customer list? I wish I had a place where I had all my customer like does that order do today is that like just who paid me who didn't like just nonsense that doesn't feel particularly effective. And I'm a software guy and a nerd. So I'm like, oh, that's not hard to build. Turns out, it's hard to build, but like not hard to build. It's hard to build a company, not hard to build software. Well, it's hard to have software but and the thing that was so interesting to me, is I wasn't expecting to get really into and understanding the psychology and motivations of these entrepreneurs. And I, for whatever reason, I wasn't expecting to really learn how. First of all, there's the do I even deserve to be doing this? Is my stuff good enough? Can I charge for it? What should I charge for it? Oh, they'll never pay for that much. That sort of confidence and inner mindset that you I'm sure help with.

Sari
That's one of my specialties. You deserve it.

Mark
This is special in your talented, but then the amount of work you spend doing on things that are not, you're not good at. And then you fail. Fail, meaning like, you'd wake up one day and say either I can't do this anymore or you look at the numbers to say this makes no sense. And they feel like they are failures as human beings, not as trying something entrepreneurial. And how intertwine those are, and how happy I am when someone says I could never do this without Castiron. You made my life so much easier. Oh, now I can do this. Right? When really, we're just getting, letting them get all that stuff out of the way for them. So they can step forward and be awesome at what they do. I've been obsessed with that. And I've thought a lot about moments of joy. Like why food, like why food. That's why I happened upon, I told you that like the origin story. But like, what, like, what's better than I know, it's a snowy day that my wife, she's making us cookies today. And her cookies are my favorite cookies by far I've ever had, are they like, technically the best cookies in the world? Doesn't matter because she's making them for me with love. Like, that's special. That's like, I mean, what's better than that? Like, if we can figure out Sari how to get like thousands or millions of entrepreneurs to bring their love and passion and talent and hard work to products that deliver that to people. That's like, that's life's work to be proud

Sari
Yeah, and just to make it easier to actually execute. Because, yeah, there's so much to unpack there. And that's exactly the work that we do in Master Your Business. But it's that entrepreneurial curse of, I'm so passionate about my product, right? I'm the maker. And then, oh, I have this lightning bolt moment of I should turn this into a business, or maybe some of its by necessity, right? Kind of can go both ways, but or combination of both. But there's this entrepreneurial moment, what the gap of I make something delicious and running an actual business and like all the things that it takes to be a CEO and to be a business owner, and, you know, financials and execution and marketing and sales. And all of it is just a lot and like you said, I mean a lot of people. I mean, there's a reason why was it 80% of of startups are out of business within five years. I think it's because of the gap there between passion and like how to actually run a business.

Mark
Passion and a plan.

Sari
Yeah. And so Castiron has really taken a lot of the heavy lift. And that's what we talked about Master your Business all the time is like, who are your who, right? And first start with outsourcing, start with products. You don't have to hire people all the time to solve it. You can work with technology, things that are built specifically for your industry and have you in mind and I love that you've thought about all of these. You really got into the mindset and the psychology of your customer and all of their pain points and then created a solution for it, right? That's what we're all doing here as business owners. So that's your first level that you did was just the the website platform and all the pieces that need to get built in to help people run a smoother business. And then so let's talk about what's next because Castiron has made well, we'll do it in the past tense, because this will be coming out after the big announcement. But you've made a big announcement and added a whole another all facets of the business. So tell us about that.

Mark
I'm so excited. It's so energizing. So we've launched the consumer marketplace for shoppers around the world to get access to these great products and great artisans to find more moments of joy. And that makes, it fills a need for people looking for special foods for special events, and special reasons to buy. We've now seen millions and millions of dollars of transactions through Castiron, and over the past couple of years. So it's undeniable that people love artisanal food, for the right reasons and at the right times. And it helps us and continues on the path of our mission to support and empower the artisanal entrepreneur and give them consistency in the aim. We aim to give them consistency of earnings of growth to go from does this work to it does work, and I can meet my goals. It lets them focus on being awesome at what they do. And we can mark it and be a marketing engine. So we're launching a whole marketing engine behind the scene. It's not just the [email protected]. But it is organic content, organic social, paid social, paid search, paid advertising, partnerships, distribution partnerships, media partnerships, and the entire marketing engine that you now have access to inside of Castiron, which is like, it's, it's a dream come true for me, because it lets us connect, make more moments of joy between that incredible product and the moment when you get to enjoy it. So I'm really excited for it, it was been part of our plan to get here. Now that we've got the infrastructure, the the learnings about what people are making and buying and selling, and how we can help them do even more of that.

Sari
Right.That's one of those big hats, right? There's the operational, the backend, how do I fulfill orders, charge orders, all of that stuff? Obviously, the maker, the business owner needs to be in charge of how they get better at making the product and more effective and efficient. But you have the website and the tools to support them. But then you know, then it's the other big hat that we always hear people complain about or you know, that is challenging, really challenging nut to crack is? I got to get more people in, right? Like, I want to just make my product, but I have to go out and get the people, right? And it's the chicken or the egg. And like you said people spend a lot of time and not everybody love social media, most people aren't great marketers.

Mark
It's not natural. And sometimes you don't want to ask your friends and like, intensely personal. And frankly, there's some things that are just easier when you have a network effect behind it. So we can spend money and we will to drive an attraction and attention around, you know, all the products in the marketplace. But we're going to leverage special moments on the calendar because we know people buy cookies for Easter, people are bought, you know, we know the moments of the year and the buck behavior. And every single time a day passes where someone is looking for something special for a special event. And they don't know about the sellers at Castiron. That's a huge missed opportunity. So that's what I think about. I think about, I've been obsessed with I mentioned the millions of people in the world who are making food and selling it out of their homes or commercial kitchens, selling it legally. And then the billions of people whose days would be happier, if they had a cookie, or their lives would be healthier if they had a meal plan and a meal prep, or their dinner would be a little spicier because they're using an amazing sauce. Like that, to me, it's just like the coolest thing in the world to work on. So as an entrepreneur myself, you have to be excited about it.

Sari
Yeah, it's so exciting and really is I mean I'm in doing the background work of really helping people become better business owners and understand their business models and doing it safely and all of those things but I love that you're going to take this one thing that's not most people's forte and get that off their plate, so they can just do the thing that they're really good at. And I remember you know, I've always been really into local food. I used to work for a farm, we did a big CSA program. Community Supported Agriculture. So we were delivering the sides of beef and the bread and the vegetables and the eggs and all of that. And I feel like yeah, so I've always had a special tie to local food and the way that when we as communities really support that how our whole community thrives, right? There's like, there was a graphic that showed, you know, when you buy direct from a farmer or the baker, the grower, that I mean, it was like 70% of the income stays in your local community, versus when you buy that same product at a grocery store shelf, right, that it was like 30 cents or something stays in the, in the local economy.

Mark
So before Bitly format, last job, last company, I spent years working in local media, local advertising, local commerce, local sales, and the company that that was the first one we built and sold. And they, I mean, the business that then we were working in building for the businesses on Main Street, karate, bagels and nails that that we used to talk about, and because those businesses are, God, it's so hard to run and build those businesses and like in local communities, the pressure you're competing with, like the behemoths, like, they're not looking out for you. And you're right. And so that, that my dad was a small business owner, my mom and dad business, those small business owners, and I saw how hard they worked and instilled in me both the desire to do my own entrepreneurial stuff, but also tried to make it easier for others to do as well. Like well leveled the playing field a little bit.

Sari
My hope, you know, I've always been very little idealistic and passionate and aspirational about, I really do hope we get to a place, I mean, it's awesome, we can get blueberries in the middle of the winter, or whatever, but like, but also to create more of a focus. And I think COVID was a really great moment where it's like, oh, eggs are out of the grocery store, but I could get them from a local farm, and oh, my gosh, there's so much better, right? And then hopefully, you kind of stay in that mindset and realizing the impact that you get to have on your local community. And those, that's not the work that the makers are doing, right? They are part of that local system and economy and helping it thrive. But you're going out and helping them find the customers.

Mark
I'll help them find the customer. Like, we'll do that. And also because idealistic to is like it's better for the planet. It's better for our children, it's better for the future, if we can have more people be successful, right? And keep it local, like, there's a dream of being Bruce Springsteen, not being Bruce Springsteen, playing in his band, standing next to him, having a meaningful conversation with him, like hanging out, like, that's life. But he said something to the effect of in the end, nobody wins unless everybody wins. He said that a constant wants and that's something I've always remembered. It's like, what good is it if you're, I don't know Elon Musk, and you're a trillionaire. But your employees are sleeping on the floor. And you know, your cars are running off the road, that's whatever, like, but like, you know, like the ultimate measure of success for Castiron, won't be in revenue. Or if we IPO or gets sold for a ton of money, whatever it is, right? It's going to be like, the moments of joy that we create, facilitated, because we didn't create them, we facilitated them. And the successful businesses and entrepreneurs who are paying for their health care, staying home with their kids, able to go on vacation, able to take care of a loved one, and do that with predictability and sanity. So that's where Sari, like our technology, but your expertise will get the customers you know, we'll get to their customers, but we got to help them be smarter and get there faster.

Sari
Yeah, and feel worthy of the profit because, you know, kind of going back to some of that mindset stuff is like, you can have the infrastructure, you can be bringing in the customers and then but if they're not feeling like they deserve this, or who am I or I'm no no, no, like, this isn't worth the $8 or whatever, right? That ultimately then they can sabotage their business. They end up running in the red, like, they're not making smart business decisions. And I really believe like if we can get everybody feeling worthy of that profit and charging what they need to, and the customer feels great about it. It's amazing what you know, I run a farmers market and I'll pay extra for those eggs, I'll pay extra for that bread.

Sari
I'm looking at the maker and saying, you did this?

Mark
Well, you are talking about the emotional motivations. We have the data to prove that it's true. Millions of dollars of transactions, and I know what our cookie costs. Brian Large on Castiron, a custom iced, you know, royal icing sugar cookie, that it looks gorgeous. I know what that costs versus buying an Oreo on the shelf. And it's 10x on the cookie than it is on the Oreo. Like, and people are happy to pay it.

Sari
I'm happy to pay it. And I know other people are and all Yeah, all boats float and we all rise and let's get more money into the people's into the people's hands that need it, deserve it or doing the work and bringing the joy.

Mark
And the marketing we're going to be doing is going to be around supporting that price point those higher price points. Not to price people out, the opposite. Right to be some of that back. Maybe I hadn't thought about this way till this conversation, but to be a bit of the backbone for that mindset, that, you know, we're putting together a campaign right now for an upcoming holiday. Since I don't know whether this way or but like sort of an upcoming holiday. And we're giving suggested price points based on what we've seen in the past. And they're going to be higher than some people are selling already. But we have data to prove that they'll pay it.

Sari
I mean, I get into people's financials all the time and work with them in Food Business Success on their profitability. And we have certain target ranges where I suggest you need to be at and bakers are especially notorious for undercharging, when they actually do their cost of goods sold correctly. And then I show them over time, like, you know, is it really worth the time that you're devoting to this? If you're like, yeah, I'm making a profit. But when you really look at the numbers, you're like, you made like, 100 bucks this month, right? Like, that doesn't feel great. And so let's design a business model that works. And I love that you're going to go after people and tell a story about the impact of buying local and creating these magic moments.

Mark
There's so many wonderful stories to be told. It's a marketer's dream. Creative is gorgeous. The stories are gorgeous, the products are delicious.

Sari
Yeah. So when this airs, I will have supported you guys in a big event where you're, you announced all of this. And I look forward to we're going to be doing some more partnerships and supporting people specifically in Castiron with the work and the expertise that I bring in, which is going to be so.

Mark
Really lucky to have you as a partner. And I've said this offline, but I'll say it for your readers to hear you are a superstar that is known throughout the industry. And folks, we're really, really lucky to get time with you. So I feel lucky to get time with you and to benefit from your experience and expertise.

Sari
Thank you. Yeah, we're both in it for the same reason. Let's go help people make money and do what they love and spread joy.

Mark
Amen, sister, let's do it.

Sari
I know, I'm going to have a special link for people in the show notes of how to get started if they want to go and sell on Castiron and get started on the platform. And then, because you don't have to take advantage, right? Like it's kind of two different products where you can do the Castiron website.

Mark
So go going forward. We're a marketplace business, you still get the amazing Cast ron website that you've always wanted. And with all the tools, you're getting everything you've got before. You're just getting it in effectively. A crowded shopping mall. So with more customers going around you, but it's one product.

Sari
Amazing. I love that model. So just get inside and start selling on Castiron and be part of, yeah, let somebody else go bring in all those customers. You go make your product.

Mark
Yes. I'll be a marketer.

Sari
I love it. All right. Anything you want to add, Mark?

Mark
I think that cookies make everything better. Fresh baked bread makes everything better. We all need meal prep. We all need a little spicier food. And I eat granola every day. It's all true. It's all really true. So thank you for the opportunity to talk. Thanks for the opportunity to partner and I'm really excited about what we have in front of us.

Sari
All right. Thanks for being here, Mark. I really appreciate it. It's fun.

Mark
Thanks for having me.

Sari
Postscript here. I now have already done the event. And for Castiron for their Flour Power event, and it was incredible. They put on such a great event. They brought in myself and I did a really great talk, if I do say so myself about being a better boss to yourself and being the boss you deserve. People were like, this is like therapy, the chat, like I cried a little, it was so good. And then they had a couple of other guest speakers that were phenomenal. And I love it, they are trying to support the whole person, not just like, here's this website, software, good luck, right? They really want people to succeed. And they made the announcement about the marketplace and all of that. So if you want somebody to go and do the marketing lift for you. And it makes sense, Castiron is not for every business model. But it really makes sense for certain types of makers. And go check it out. The link is in the show notes. And then go and see if it's for you. Because when that'd be nice to just have customers coming and finding you and you didn't have to go do all the work. You could then just go and make your product and get it to them and delight them. And then you just keep going. I love it so much. All right. That's what we have for you today. Until next time, have an amazing week!

The smartest thing you can do as an entrepreneur is to invest in a who to help you with the how to speed up your journey and help you skip the line. When you are ready for more support and accountability to finally get this thing done, you can work with me in two ways. Get me all to yourself with one on one business coaching, or join Food Business Success which includes membership inside Fuel, our community of food business founders that includes monthly live group coaching calls and so much more. It's one of my favorite places to hang out and I would love to see you there. Go to foodbizsuccess.com to start your journey towards your own Food Business Success.